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when Loretta could not see to the needs of her youngest children, there was someone
else who could. The demands of their home and farm meant that school was not a
high priority for the Gaggioni children, most only completing the compulsory years to
age fourteen. John and Emest did, however, go on to higher education, enrolling at
the School of Mines, an institution founded in Vincent Street Daylesford in January
1890. Opening wdth an enrolment of 84 students, its subject offerings reflected the
gold mining origins of Daylesford and included mining, metallurgy, assaying and
petrology. Other subjects were telegraphy, magnetism and electricity, mathematics,
botany, Latin and French (presumably for the reading of scientific journals) and
bookkeeping. John graduated from the school as a carpenter and Emest as a
typesetter with the Daylesford Advocate, a job which aUowed him to enter the
work-force of the general community. Rather than go on to higher education at the
completion of their school years, their sisters were encouraged to find a job until it was
time for them to marry.
In 1901 Virginia became the wife of Emest Menz, a union which forged links
between the district's German and Swiss communities. They set up home in a timber
cottage in Hepburn, both of them remaining close to their family networks. Josie,
before she married, worked for a branch of the Borsa family in a guest-house in the
Melboume suburb of Canterbury, John, who was the carpenter, also married and buUt
a modem home near the Hepbum school before later moving to Melboume, Because
of the years separating the Gaggioni children \X was, however, many years before all
had left the family home, and when Pietro died in 1906, several, including two y';ar old
Ray, remained in Loretta's care." Pietro's death came shortly after the devastating
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